Antandroy
Nation | Active
1600 CE to 2215 CE
The Antandroy (or Tandroy) are a traditionally nomadic ethnic group of Madagascar inhabiting the arid southern part of the island called Androy. T
racing their origins back to the Sakalava people, in the seventeenth century the Antandroy emerge as a confederation of two groups ruled by the Zafimanara dynasty until flooding caused the kingdom to disband around 1790.
The difficult terrain and climate of Tandroy protects and isolates the population, sparing them from subjugation by the Kingdom of Imerina in the nineteenth century; later, the French colonial authority also struggles to exert its influence over this population.
Since independence the Antandroy have suffered prejudice and economic marginalization, prompting widespread migration and intermarriage with other ethnic groups, and leading them to play a key role in protests that sparked the end of President Philibert Tsiranana's administration in 1972.
While the Antandroy share many common cultural features with other ethnic groups in Madagascar, such as respect for the ancestors, a common language and complex funeral rites, certain practices set them apart.
They are particularly known for their distinctive dances, cotton woven clothing, elaborately decorated tombs, and unique use of plank architecture in the construction of their houses.
Also unlike most Malagasy ethnic groups they rely more heavily on tubers, yams, millet and other crops that are less dependent on water for cultivation than the rice so prevalent elsewhere on the island.
The herding of zebu remains the principal economic activity of the Antandroy, and their tombs are commonly decorated with numerous zebu skulls as an indication of wealth.
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Madagascar becomes a source of slaves, not only for the neighboring islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, but also for more distant points, including the Western Hemisphere.
Madagascar's social and political structure facilitates the slave trade.
Within several small coastal kingdoms, stratified societies of nobles, commoners, and slaves give allegiance to a single king or queen.
For example, the Sakalava ethnic group dominated the western and northern portions of Madagascar in two separate kingdoms.
Menabe, on the barren western grasslands, has its first capital at Toliara; ...
...Boina, in the northwest, includes the port of Mahajanga.
The towns become centers of trade where cattle and slaves, taken in war, are exchanged with European merchants for guns and other manufactured goods.
These political domains are complemented by the Betsimisaraka kingdom along the east coast, and the southern coastal kingdoms dominated by the Mahafaly and the Antandroy ethnic groups.
The most powerful of Madagascar's kingdoms—the one that eventually establishes hegemony over a great portion of the island—is that developed by the Merina ethnic group.
Before the Merina emergevas the dominant political power on the island in the nineteenth century, they alternate between periods of political unity and periods in which the kingdom separates into smaller political units.
The location of the Merina in the central highlands affords them some protection from the ravages of warfare that recur among the coastal kingdoms.
The distinction, recognized both locally and internationally, between the central highlanders (the Merina) and the cotiers (inhabitants of the coastal areas) will soon exert a major impact on Madagascar's political system.
Organized like the coastal kingdoms in a hierarchy of nobles, commoners, and slaves, the Merina develop a unique political institution known as the fokonolona (village council).
Through the fokonolona, village elders and other local notables are able to enact regulations and exert a measure of local control in such matters as public works and security.
Two monarchs play key roles in establishing Merina political dominance over Madagascar.
The first, who rules under the name of Andrianampoinimerina (r. 1797-1810), seizes the throne of one of the Merina kingdoms in 1787.
By 1806 he has conquered the remaining three kingdoms and united them within the former boundaries of Imerina, the capital established at the fortified city of Antananarivo.
Radama I (r. 1810- 28), an able and forward-looking monarch, succeeds to the throne in 1810 upon the death of his father.
By adroitly playing off competing British and French interests in the island, he is able to extend Merina authority over nearly the entire island of Madagascar.
Radama I first conquers the Betsileo ethnic group in the southern part of the central highlands and subsequently overpowers the Sakalava, an ethnic group that also seeks at times to assert its hegemony over other groups.
With the help of the British, who want a strong kingdom to offset French influence, Radama I modernizes the armed forces.
In 1817 the peoples of the east coast, facing an army of thirty-five thousand soldiers, submit with little or no protest; Radama then conquers the entire southeast as far as Tolanaro.
Particularly barren or impenetrable parts of the island escape conquest, especially in the extreme south, but before his death Radama I succeeds in bringing the major and more hospitable portions of the country under Merina rule.